Decision due on supermarket's bid for new Horsham store

The Jeep showroom at Roffey Corner in Crawley Road closed in early 2021 and supermarket chain Sainsbury’s wants to move on to the site.

But Majestic Wine also wants to relocate to the site as its lease on its current home in East Street is set to expire in December.

A pair of applications on behalf of Sainsbury’s are due to be discussed by Horsham District Council’s planning committee north on Tuesday (October 4).

They seek a change of use as well as single storey extensions to the southern and eastern elevations, alterations to the external fenestration, and internal alterations.

The first application was submitted to and determined by the council. This application related to the southern portion of the site.

A separate planning application, lodged on behalf of a different applicant, was also being considered for the northern part of the site for a change of use of the building to a café.

The council’s decision was challenged claiming that it had failed to take into account a material consideration, namely to assess and determine the application’s transport and highway safety impact cumulatively with the separate café application; and failing to weigh the potential cumulative harm from both applications in the planning balance.

The council conceded that the officers’ report had dealt with highway impact and amenity impact in an ‘inconsistent manner’ as highways matters had been considered individually but the cumulative impact of both applications had been considered with regard to amenity matters.

The council’s decision was quashed in May.

The café application on the northern portion of the site has since been withdrawn.

Officers said in their report due to be discussed next week: “The proposed Sainsbury’s Local Store is a small scale local convenience shop that is likely to fill a predominantly everyday top-up convenience shopping function for local residents.”

But letters of objections have been sent in by a number of residents leaving next to or nearby the site raising concerns about road safety and congestion, noise and disturbance, light pollution, anti-social behaviour, parking as well as the impact on the environment and character of the area.